Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a 2004 action-adventure stealth game developed and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2. It was released in late 2004 in North America and Japan, and in early 2005 in Europe and Australia. It was the fifth Metal Gear game written, produced, and directed by Hideo Kojima and serves as a prequel to the entire Metal Gear series. An expanded edition, titled Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, was released in Japan in late 2005, then in North America, Europe, and Australia in 2006. A remastered version of the game, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – HD Edition, was later included in the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Vita, while a reworked version, titled Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012. The HD Edition of the game was included on the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 compilation for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on October 24, 2023. The same year, Konami announced a remake, entitled Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, which released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows in August 2025.
Set in 1964, 31 years before the events of the original Metal Gear, the story centers on the FOX operative codenamed Naked Snake as he attempts to rescue Russian rocket scientist Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov, sabotage an experimental superweapon, and assassinate his defected former boss. While previous games were set in a primarily urban environment, Snake Eater adopts a 1960s Soviet jungle setting, with the high-tech, near-future trappings of previous Metal Gear Solid games replaced with wilderness. While the environment has changed, the game's focus remains on stealth and infiltration, while retaining the series' self-referential, fourth-wall-breaking sense of humor. The story of Snake Eater is told through numerous cutscenes and radio conversations.
Considered one of the greatest video games of all time, Metal Gear Solid 3 received high praise from critics and was a commercial success, having sold over four million copies worldwide as of March 2010.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Snake Eater is similar to earlier games in the Metal Gear Solid series. The player controls Snake, who must move without being seen in a dangerous area filled with enemies. Although Snake can collect weapons, such as handguns and rocket-propelled grenades, the main goal is to avoid fighting by staying hidden. Along the way, Snake can find tools like motion detectors to track enemies and a cardboard box, which helps him hide from view.
While the game shares many features with earlier Metal Gear games, Snake Eater adds new elements. These include camouflage, a new hand-to-hand combat system called "close quarters combat" (CQC), a stamina gauge, and a system for tracking injuries and treating them.
Most of the game takes place outdoors in a Soviet tropical forest. Using the environment is often key to success. For example, players must use camouflage and blend into the jungle, such as by climbing trees or hiding in tall grass. The advanced radar from previous games has been replaced with a simpler motion detector and sonar system that fits the jungle setting.
A number called the "camouflage index" shows how visible Snake is to enemies. It ranges from negative numbers (very visible) to 100% (completely invisible). To stay hidden, players must switch between different camouflage uniforms and face paints that match the environment, such as wearing a bark-patterned uniform near a tree or striped face paint in tall grass. Other camouflage tools, like a fake gavial head for hiding in water or a monkey mask, are also available.
The hand-to-hand combat from earlier games has been improved into the CQC system. When unarmed or using a one-handed weapon, Snake can grab enemies and perform actions like choking them, throwing them to the ground, cutting their throat, or interrogating them with a knife. The actions depend on how the player presses buttons and moves the controller.
Earlier games used a simple health bar, but Snake Eater tracks injuries across Snake’s body. For example, a long fall might break his leg, reducing his maximum health until the injury heals over time or is treated with a splint and bandage.
Players must also use plants and animals in the jungle to survive. A stamina gauge decreases as Snake moves. If the gauge is not restored by eating food, it harms gameplay. Snake’s aim becomes less accurate, and he may make loud noises from a hungry stomach. Food can be stored in a backpack, but some types spoil over time. Eating spoiled food can cause a stomachache, making the stamina gauge deplete faster.
The PlayStation 2 version of Snake Eater includes a minigame called "Snake vs. Monkey," which is a crossover with Sony’s Ape Escape series. In this game, Snake must catch monkeys. The minigame includes humorous elements from both series and offers bonus items for the main game as rewards.
Synopsis
Snake Eater is a video game set in a different version of history during the Cold War in the 1960s. It is the first story in the Metal Gear series and explains the beginning of events shown in later games. The game follows Naked Snake, a young soldier who later becomes known as Big Boss. He works for the CIA unit FOX and is sent on a secret mission.
Naked Snake is helped by three FOX members over the radio: Major Zero, a former British soldier who gives him advice; Para-Medic, who shares medical and nature knowledge; and Sigint, who explains weapons and equipment.
The main enemies in the game are Colonel Volgin, a Russian officer who controls electricity and wants to take power, and The Boss, Naked Snake’s former teacher and co-founder of the FOX unit. The Cobra Unit, led by The Boss, includes soldiers like The End, a famous sniper; The Fear, who is extremely flexible; The Fury, a former astronaut with a flamethrower and jetpack; The Pain, who uses hornets to fight; and The Sorrow, a spirit of a dead medium.
Other characters include Dr. Sokolov, a scientist Snake must save; Aleksandr Granin, a rival scientist; EVA, a U.S. spy who helps Snake; and a young Ocelot, who leads a special unit for Volgin.
In 1964, Naked Snake is sent to Tselinoyarsk, USSR, to rescue Dr. Sokolov, a scientist who had left Russia two years earlier. The CIA believes Sokolov is working on a secret weapon called the Shagohod, a tank with nuclear power. However, The Boss betrays Snake, captures Sokolov, and fights him. Volgin takes control of the Shagohod and uses a nuclear bomb to destroy its research facility. Snake survives the attack and is rescued.
After the nuclear blast, the Soviet Union accuses the United States of the attack. To avoid war, the U.S. president agrees to prove innocence. Snake is ordered to complete "Operation Snake Eater," which includes stopping Volgin, destroying the Shagohod, and defeating The Boss. He meets EVA, who helps him find Sokolov. Snake fights members of the Cobra Unit and learns that Sokolov is held in a fortress called Groznyj Grad. There, he is captured, tortured, and loses an eye. He escapes and returns to destroy the Shagohod.
Volgin reveals a secret group called the Philosophers, who gathered $100 billion to fund their plans after World War II. Volgin stole the money, and Snake learns the U.S. is trying to recover it. Snake defeats Volgin, destroys the Shagohod, and battles The Boss, who gives him a microfilm before dying. EVA leaves with the microfilm, revealing she is a Chinese spy.
After the mission, Snake is honored as Big Boss and given a medal by the U.S. president. He visits The Boss’s grave and salutes her. Ocelot later tells the KGB and CIA that the microfilm was fake and that the stolen money is now split between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The main theme of Metal Gear Solid 3 is "Scene," which explores how politics changes depending on time and place. The game mixes real historical events, like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, with fictional stories.
Development
The game was originally planned for the PlayStation 3, but because the console was not available yet, the development was delayed and moved to the PlayStation 2 instead. From the beginning, the game’s director, Hideo Kojima, wanted to change the setting from previous games. He said the jungle setting was what both his team and Metal Gear fans wanted. However, he noted that features like weather, landscape, and wildlife in a jungle environment would be difficult to create during development. Unlike earlier games, where the player started near or inside the enemy base, Kojima wanted Snake Eater to be more realistic, with Snake starting far from civilization and needing to travel to the enemy camp.
Kojima asked Yoji Shinkawa to design Naked Snake to look like Solid Snake. However, Naked Snake was a rookie and acted more naively than Solid Snake. Shinkawa said he had no trouble making Naked Snake look similar to Solid Snake. As a result, Naked Snake looks almost the same as Solid Snake from previous games. The love scene between Naked Snake and EVA was inspired by the movie The Pink Panther (1963). Kojima and Shinkawa watched the movie, but Kojima said the scene might differ from the original. Since the game’s trailers did not reveal that Naked Snake was Big Boss, Kojima gave vague answers about the character’s identity. Originally, Kojima wanted Kurt Russell to voice Naked Snake, but the actor refused. Russell later confirmed in January 2024 that while he understood Naked Snake was inspired by Snake Plissken, a character he played in Escape from New York (1981), he was not interested in reprising the role or working on a project without director John Carpenter.
Kojima said creating the outside environment was challenging. He explained that earlier games were mostly set indoors because older consoles lacked the power to create a true jungle setting. Unlike urban areas, jungles have uneven ground, such as rocks, dirt mounds, and tree stumps. Because of this, the collision engine used in previous games could not be used, and a new one had to be built. Setting up motion capture technology to allow players to walk over these obstacles was a problem during development. Many fans wanted the game to use a 3D camera, but this feature was not included. Kojima sees Metal Gear Solid, Sons of Liberty, and Snake Eater as a trilogy and wanted to keep the camera style consistent with the previous two games, even though other games had started using full 3D camera movement.
Kojima designed the boss battles in Snake Eater to be different from those in earlier Metal Gear games or other games. He said the battle with sniper The End best showed the game’s open, free gameplay. The fight takes place in a large jungle area, and the player must search for The End, who attacks from a hidden location. This battle can last for hours and is different from other boss fights where the enemy is visible the whole time. Players can skip the fight by killing The End earlier, saving the game, and waiting a week (or changing the console’s internal clock) to reload and find The End dead from old age. Kojima said features like this are not found in other games.
The musical score for Snake Eater was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and Norihiko Hibino, who created music for both cutscenes and gameplay. Hibino wrote the game’s opening theme, “Snake Eater,” a song that sounds like a James Bond theme and is performed by Cynthia Harrell in the game. Composer and lyricist Rika Muranaka provided a song called “Don’t Be Afraid,” which plays during the game’s ending and is performed by Elisa Fiorillo.
In a change from past games, one of the ending themes was not created by the game’s team but was instead the song “Way To Fall” by Starsailor. Kojima later shared on his blog that he originally wanted to use “Space Oddity” and “Ashes to Ashes” by David Bowie because the game’s theme involved space exploration. However, this theme became less important during development. A colleague suggested he listen to Stellastarr, but Kojima misheard the name as Starsailor. He liked the song “Way To Fall” and chose it as the ending theme.
Release
Snake Eater was first released in North America. The Japanese version was released about a month later. The Japanese edition included extra downloadable camouflage patterns not available in the North American version. Some of these patterns could only be downloaded using data from Metal Gear Solid 3-related soundtrack CDs. A special "premium package" edition was released in Japan alongside the standard version. This package included a DVD with all the promotional trailers shown before the game's release (including a video shown internally at Konami), two booklets, and a painted 1/144-scale model of the Shagohod. A limited edition CD was given to those who pre-ordered the Japanese version. It included music from the game, computer screensavers, and extra camouflage for the main game. The pre-order package also allowed cell phone users to access a website with image and music downloads.
For the European release, Konami added new features. These included the "European Extreme" difficulty setting, a "demo theater" that let players watch all cutscenes again after seeing them once, and a "Duel Mode" where players could replay boss battles from the main game. Additional facepaints based on European flags and two new "Snake vs. Monkey" levels were also added. Most of the downloadable camouflage patterns from the Japanese version were also available in Europe, with only a few exceptions.
In July 2007, Konami re-released all mainline Metal Gear Solid games from PlayStation and PlayStation 2, along with the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, individually and as part of a limited edition box set in Japan. This set celebrated the 20th anniversary of the original Metal Gear. The box set included the first disc from the Subsistence version and a second disc with ports of the MSX2 games Metal Gear and Solid Snake. It did not include Metal Gear Online (because its servers were no longer active) but included other content from the original Subsistence version, such as "Snake vs. Monkey," "Duel Mode," and "Secret Theater." A similar box set was released in North America in March 2008, titled Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection. It included the first disc of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence and the original Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, but not the second disc with the MSX2 games from the Japanese edition.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence was released in Japan on December 22, 2005, in North America on March 14, 2006, in Europe on October 6, 2006, and in Australia on October 13, 2006. Subsistence continued the tradition of expanded versions in the Metal Gear Solid series. Earlier versions, such as Metal Gear Solid: Integral and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, included skill challenges or side missions. Subsistence instead added ports of the MSX2 versions of Metal Gear and Solid Snake (with the latter being officially localized for the first time), an online multiplayer mode called Metal Gear Online, and a fully 3D, user-controlled camera in the main game. Because of these additions, the Subsistence edition was split into two discs: the first disc contained the main game and cutscene viewer, while the second disc included the online multiplayer mode and other supplemental content.
Metal Gear Online includes five tournament-style game modes, each with up to eight players. Players control generic soldiers and compete in deathmatch battles and variations of capture the flag. They use stages, items, and units from the main game, such as the KGB, GRU, or Ocelot Unit. Depending on server settings, the highest-scoring player in each unit becomes a main character (or Reiko Hinomoto from Rumble Roses) with special abilities or items. For example, the highest-scoring player on the GRU team would become Major Raikov, the leader of the GRU, in the next round. Konami closed the Metal Gear Online service for PlayStation 2 in Japan on December 26, 2006, followed by North America on April 2, 2007, and Europe on October 30, 2007. However, fans later revived the service by emulating the servers. If a player unlocked an animal codename, they could also play as Reiko Hinomoto or Rowdy Reiko from Rumble Roses, depending on their team (red or blue). According to Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, he added these characters as secret characters partly because of an opportunity. Kojima had previously been offered a crossover deal with Rumble Roses producer Akari Uchida but was refused by the development team. He later accepted the offer to complete loose ends when choosing secret characters for the online mode. Kojima also considered offering Tomonobu Itagaki, then producer of Dead or Alive, the chance to include one of his characters as a secret option.
In addition to older games and the online mode, Subsistence includes features from the Japanese and European releases. These include downloadable camouflage and facepaint designs, "Snake vs. Monkey" stages, the European Extreme difficulty level, parody cutscenes and trailers from the official website, and connectivity with Metal Gear Acid 2. The Japanese version also included a URL for a hidden website where users could download OtaClock, a clock program featuring the character Otacon from the Metal Gear Solid series. This website is now publicly available.
"Limited Edition" copies of Subsistence include Existence, a three-and-a-half-hour feature film made from the game's cutscenes with added scenes and remastered sound. The North American "Limited Edition" package was only available to pre
Related media
A book version of the game Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, written by Satoshi Hase, was published by Kadokawa Shoten in Japan on January 25, 2014.
KPE, a part of Konami that handles entertainment in parlors, announced a pachislot version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It uses a new type of machine called the "Big Boss," which has a 32-inch LCD screen in full HD that covers the front. Scenes from the original video game were recreated using improved computer graphics to display the machine's advanced video features. The machine was officially released on October 17, 2016, to many entertainment venues across Japan.
Reception
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was a successful game. It sold 2.38 million copies in Asia and America by December 2004, and 3.6 million copies worldwide by August 2005. This number was lower than the sales of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which sold 7 million copies. By September 2005, Snake Eater sales reached 3.7 million units. Worldwide sales surpassed 4 million copies by March 2010. In Japan, the game Subsistence sold 133,339 copies, and Snake Eater 3D sold 79,284 copies.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater received high praise from critics. According to Metacritic, it was widely acclaimed. IGN gave it a 9.6/10 rating, and Edge rated it 8/10. GameSpot scored it 8.7/10 and described it as "richly cinematic" and "a great achievement." GameSpy called it "probably the best Metal Gear Solid game yet," and Eurogamer said it was "overwhelmingly superior to MGS2: Sons of Liberty."
Critics liked the new character, Naked Snake, who looks similar to the series' main character, Solid Snake. This was a welcome change after fans were disappointed by the character Raiden in MGS2. Some critics thought the story in Snake Eater was better than MGS2 because it had fewer complicated ideas and more straightforward storytelling. GameTrailers gave the original game a 9/10, praising the improved graphics, gameplay, and story but noting issues with the camera and long breaks between scenes.
Reviewers had mixed opinions about the camouflage system. Edge said hiding in grass near enemies was an exciting new stealth feature, but GameSpy called it uninteresting. GameSpot considered it the most important and well-designed feature in the game. Some critics criticized the game’s low frame rate, which was 30 frames per second (compared to 60 frames per second in MGS2). Others said the camera was outdated and poorly designed.
The cutscenes in Snake Eater were described as "visually exciting and beautifully shot" by Edge. However, they criticized the script as awkward and said David Hayter’s performance as Snake did not match the quality of other games or movies. GameSpot noted that some humor was lost in translation from Japanese and might not appeal to all players.
Since its release in 2004, the game won many awards. It received awards for Best Overall Action Game, Best Story, and Best PS2 Use of Sound at IGN’s Best of 2004. At GameSpot’s Game of the Year 2004, it won Best Story, Best Sound Effects, and Best New Character. It was also a finalist for several other categories.
At the 9th CESA Game Awards, Snake Eater won the Award for Excellence. Its theme song won the Best Original Vocal Song – Pop award from the Game Audio Network Guild in 2005. The game itself won Best PS2 Game at a 2005 event in Germany. At the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now called the D.I.C.E. Awards), it was nominated for "Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance – Male" for David Hayter’s voice acting as Naked Snake.
Legacy
Snake Eater was created as a story before the rest of the Metal Gear series. It was followed by several direct sequels: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. In 2011, the game’s creator, Hideo Kojima, shared an idea for a Metal Gear Solid 5 game set during World War II, showing characters like The Boss and Cobra Unit helping in the Normandy invasion. However, the team working on the game felt this idea was too large and complex for them. Kojima later said that "giving Metal Gear Solid 5 to younger team members was a bit too much." Although the ending of Metal Gear Solid 3 shows Naked Snake being called "Big Boss," Kojima explained that "he is not truly Big Boss yet." With Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Kojima wanted to show how Naked Snake became the character who later appeared as Solid Snake’s enemy in the original Metal Gear games.
The game has been included on many "Best of …" lists by video game magazines. In 2009, IGN ranked Subsistence as number 3 on its list of "The Top 25 PS2 Games of All Time." In 2010, GamePro listed both Snake Eater and Subsistence at 8th place on its list of "The 36 Best PS2 Games." That same year, IGN placed Snake Eater at number 2 on its list of "Top 100 PlayStation 2 Games" and praised its story as "the best in the franchise." In 2013, GamesRadar ranked the game at number 22 on its list of "The 100 Best Games of All Time" and placed its story at number 10 on its list of "The Best Videogame Stories Ever." In 2015, USgamer listed the game as number 2 on its list of "The 15 Best Games Since 2000."
At one point in the game, players must climb a very tall ladder for about three minutes while the song "Snake Eater" plays in the background. This scene is considered one of the most memorable parts of the series and is an example of how the game shows the structured, step-by-step nature of video games. It has become a well-known reference in the gaming community, with players creating similar long ladder sequences in other games, such as Starfield.